Richard Landes is an American writer and medieval historian specialising in millennialism. He is associate professor of history at Boston University and the author of several books including Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience (Oxford University Press). He has also, since turn of the millennium, become a critic of the mainstream news media (MSNM), in particular its treatment of both the Arab-Israeli conflict and more broadly the issue of Islamism and Global Jihad. He has two sites dedicated to these issues: The Second Draft and a blog, The Augean Stables.

Protecting Muslim honour at the price of freedom of speech: Bruce Crumley, Time and Charlie Hebdo

[N]ot only are such Islamophobic antics futile and childish, but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good. What common good is served by creating more division and anger, and by tempting belligerent reaction? …But that seems more self-indulgent and willfully injurious when it amounts to defending the right to scream “fire” in an increasingly over-heated theater. Why? Because… [it] reflect[s] very real Islamophobic attitudes spreading throughout society.

Crumley has made the classic moral inversion characteristic of the Human Rights Complex: he treats Muslims as a force of nature, not as autonomous moral agents. In his analogy, the “burning theater” corresponds to the hostility of Muslims towards the West: "a climate where violent response – however illegitimate – is a real risk.” In other words, since Muslims are prone to (increasingly) violent responses, we must avoid “gratuitously” provoking them, and in the process (still more gratuitously) “offending millions of moderate people as well.”

What kind of Muslim would be insulted by this cartoon? Unlike some of the Danish ones – although even they were mainly uncritical – this one is quite sympathetic: a smiling Mohammed “threatens” 100 lashes "if you don’t die laughing.” What’s offensive here? Would a Christian find a cartoon of Jesus saying this offensive? Perhaps, but certainly less offensive than a crucifix in a jar of urine. I think the “vast majority” of European Jews would find such a cover with Moses amusing.

The offensive part here is not the content, but the depiction itself. Mohammed, we are told, must not be depicted. But that’s according to (some) interpretations of sharia (Muslim law), and, in principle, enforceable only in Dar al Islam: the Islamic world. What is forbidden to Muslims – like not eating pork – does not apply to non-Muslims even in Dar al Islam.

Thus, what drives the anger at the depiction of even a sympathetic Mohammed is the desire to impose a particularly rigorous interpretation of Sharia on Muslim and infidel alike. In short, it embodies, like the Danish cartoons, a Jihadi worldview in which the non-Muslim world is Dar al Harb, the world of the sword, a world Salafi Mujaheddin seek to subject to sharia. Do we really want to identify as “moderate” Muslims who so share this imperialist point of view that they find a sympathetic cartoon about Mohammed outrageously insulting?

If the “vast majority” of moderate Muslims were to say to us “we will listen to serious criticism about Islam and not assault those who engage in it, but please don’t gratuitously mock us”, I’d say “fair enough.” But that’s not what’s going on. This is not a peccadillo in the otherwise mature attitude of “the vast majority of moderate Muslims,” but a sign of how pervasive their sense of insecurity is, how desperately and aggressively fragile they are.

Crumley here is protecting the thin skin of Muslims who, in contact with the rough and tumble verbal sport of modernity, find themselves humiliated and frustrated. Freedom of speech means, above all, the right to criticise. But in an honour-shame society, public criticism – even worse, admitting fault – is anathema: a sign of weakness and an invitation to aggression from others.

Cromley is fully aware of, and highly sensitive, to this thin skin. He constantly worries about insulting and offending Muslims. Thus, Charlie Hebdo has “mock[ed] an entire faith… creating more division and anger… tempting belligerent reaction.” What happened to the “highly variegated” Muslim world? He assumes that they all respond the same immature way. Who’s the essentialising Islamophobe here?

On the other hand, the belligerent reaction he expects conforms quite nicely with my definition of an honour-shame culture, one that allows, expects, even requires that one shed blood for the sake of one’s honour.

I agree with Crumley in principle. Gratuitous insult is not what we need. Much better purposeful, serious criticism. If Crumley really embodied the maturity he pretends to, then he’d have serious challenges to Islam to his credit. That would attest to his readiness to treat Muslims as adults, capable of listening to as well as proffering criticism, to his faith that “the vast majority of Muslims are moderates.”

But if he is primarily trying to spare Muslims’ feelings – if he secretly believes that they are incapable of playing by the minimal rules of civil society; that they are not far from sympathising with jihadis for whom violence is a legitimate response to any form of criticism of Islam – then he unconsciously reveals that he thinks Muslims are primitive, violent people who must be appeased at all costs.

Here’s where Crumley and I part ways: he treats Muslims as animals or little children, and believes that he can win them over with carrots. Sticks will just spook them. So he finds Charlie Hebdo’s behavior “childish, futile, Islamophobic [sic!]… inflammatory… obnoxious, infantile… outrageous, unacceptable, condemnable.” In his anger, he even indulges in a bit of schadenfreude:

We, by contrast, have another reaction to the firebombing: Sorry for your loss, Charlie, and there’s no justification of such an illegitimate response to your current edition. But do you still think the price you paid for printing an offensive, shameful, and singularly humor-deficient parody on the logic of “because we can” was so worthwhile? If so, good luck with those charcoal drawings your pages will now be featuring.

I’d rather treat Charlie Hebdo as a teaching moment, as a shibboleth for detecting genuinely moderate Muslims. Here’s an occasion to teach our Muslim co-citizens about “sticks and stones.” If we can’t find Muslims to whom we can say: “this part of modern civil society, and your learning to get past the implied/imagined insult constitutes minimal adherence to principles of reciprocity,” then what does it mean to carry on about “moderate Muslims”? This reciprocity is especially significant given how virulently critical of infidels many of the most vocal Muslims are.

This radical (and pre-modern) asymmetry of “us” and “them” reflects one of the most disturbing – and to liberals, incomprehensible – principle of Wala wa bara - “loyalty to Muslims and enmity for infidels.” It constitutes the exact opposite of the modern principles that underlie civil polities in which citizens are guaranteed “human rights.” Diderot defined natural law as:

…in each man an act of pure understanding that reasons in the silence of passions about what man may demand of his neighbour (semblable) and what his neighbor has a right to demand of him.

In Islam there is a similar principle, what some Muslims call the “Great Jihad,” the internal struggle. According to one hadith, Muhammad warned his disciples:

You will never enter paradise until you believe, and you will never believe until you love one another (tahabbu) and make peace widespread between yourselves, loving one another, and not one of you will ever believe until his neighbor is secure from his injustices .”

When the Pope said “Islam is inherently violent,” Muslims around the world rioted violently: “How dare you say I’m violent.” When the Western intelligentsia blamed the Pope for “provoking them,” the joke was on us. It’s time to get a sense of humor. Crumley, lighten up; and Muslims, grow up. Just because almost no one dares laugh, doesn’t mean the joke isn’t on you.